


Honour Undressed

by andimeantittosting (Saylee)



Series: Collection of Andimeantittosting's Harlequin fics [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Regency, Alternate Universe - Romance Novel, Battlefield Violence, Blackmail, Blowjobs, Class Differences, Gags, Happy Ending, M/M, Mild Dom/Sub Undertones (Dom Dean/Sub Cas), Mutual Pining, Nobleman Cas, Period-Typical Homophobia, Rimming, Valet Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:08:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25340635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saylee/pseuds/andimeantittosting
Summary: Among his friends, Castiel, Lord Milton is everyone’s confidant and, along with his trusted valet, the fixer of problems. But there is one secret Castiel has never shared: he is in love with his valet and has been for years.Born in the gutters, Dean Winchester was assigned as Castiel’s batman in the war, and when Castiel travelled home to take up his title, Dean followed him as his valet. To assist Castiel, Dean is not above a little burglary or blackmail. But the one thing he wants for himself is Castiel’s heart.When Castiel’s closest friends become the target of a blackmailer, certain truths come out. But while Dean determines to seduce Castiel, Castiel is adamant that he must resist, for if there is one rule a gentleman must follow, it is never to dally with his servant.
Relationships: Balthazar/Gabriel (Supernatural), Castiel/Dean Winchester, Charlie Bradbury/Jo Harvelle
Series: Collection of Andimeantittosting's Harlequin fics [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/927501
Comments: 87
Kudos: 236
Collections: Destiel Harlequin Challenge 2020, The Destiel Fan Survey Favs Collection





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Destiel Harlequin Challenge 2020. Many thanks to the mods for organizing a fun challenge! Thanks also to the wonderful MalMuses for keeping me motivated, cheering me on, and beta reading.
> 
> My original prompt was: _**A Gentleman’s Position**_
> 
> _Among his eccentric though strictly principled group of friends, Lord Richard Vane is the confidant on whom everyone depends for advice, moral rectitude, and discreet assistance. Yet when Richard has a problem, he turns to his valet, a fixer of unparalleled genius—and the object of Richard’s deepest desires. If there is one rule a gentleman must follow, it is never to dally with servants. But when David is close enough to touch, the rules of class collide with the basest sort of animal instinct: overpowering lust._
> 
> _For David Cyprian, burglary and blackmail are as much in a day’s work as bootblacking—anything for the man he’s devoted to. But the one thing he wants for himself is the one thing Richard refuses to give: his heart. With the tension between them growing to be unbearable, David’s seemingly incorruptible master has left him no choice. Putting his finely honed skills of seduction and manipulation to good use, he will convince Richard to forget all about his well-meaning objections and give in to sweet, sinful temptation._
> 
> **A quick note on historical accuracy:** While research was definitely involved in writing this fic, ultimately my goal was to capture the feel of a regency romance novel, and in places, strict historical accuracy has been sacrificed in the name of story.

The air was black and acrid with smoke and the tang of blood, bodies milling this way and that among the clash of steel and boom of cannon-fire, knee-deep in mud and other substances not to be thought about. As deep in the fray as any of his men, Castiel slashed about him with his sword, seeking out the familiar faces of his regiment as he pushed forward. There were Gad and Inias, fighting side-by-side, and there, Asa cutting a swathe through the ranks of the enemy. And, oh, there was poor Alfie, fallen, eyes glazed open in death, forever looking upward in death.

Castiel spared a pang of sadness for the stripling, cut down in his youth, but this was not the time for grieving, not while battle raged on all sides, not while every second could mean death. There would be time for that later, time to regroup and mourn and honour those who had fallen, but now,  _ now,  _ there was a French soldier bearing down on Castiel, and it was all he could do to raise his weapon in time.

His opponent safely dispatched, Castiel cast about for the one face he did not see. His batman had started out the battle fighting by his side, but they had long since been separated by the churning tides of violence. 

_ Let him be alright, _ Castiel prayed.  _ Let him be alright. Let him be alright.  _ Losing any of his men was a painful blow, but Dean had been with him since the start of the war, had become brother-in-arms and confidant and, dared he say it, friend. If Castiel were to lose him…

There. The smoke parted, and Castiel spied him, battling two opponents, a wild grin on his face. Mud and blood streaked his cheeks, covering the constellation of freckles Castiel knew to be there. Dean ducked under one of his opponents’ blades and slashed downwards, catching the enemy soldier in the hamstring, felling him without even a killing blow. Something sharp ached in Castiel’s chest, despite his temporary reprieve from attack.

And then he saw it. Dean was facing off against the remaining French soldier, a fury of bayonet and knife, but behind him, coming up fast, was another soldier and another. Dean’s attention was too focused on his fight. He wouldn’t see them, he wouldn’t—

“Dean!” Castiel hollered.

His voice was drowned out by the roar of cannon-fire and gunshots, the clashing of bayonets, the shouts of men injured and dying, and yet, miraculously, Dean’s head snapped upwards, and he raised his weapon just in time to deflect a blow that would otherwise have separated his head from his shoulders. Taking a defensive stance, Dean squared off against the three Frenchmen who surrounded him, parrying and dodging. But having been caught off balance, he was losing ground, unable to get in any blows of his own. 

Soon, he would be overwhelmed.

Castiel would not, could not, let that happen. He would save any of his men if he could, but Dean...he could not lose Dean.

With a roar, Castiel charged across the field, heedless of the slippery mud beneath his boots, heedless of the gunsmoke filling his lungs. He slashed out with his sword, cutting back the enemy soldiers who attempted to stop him, focused on one thing only: reaching Dean, pulling Dean out.

The first of the enemies Dean was battling didn’t even anticipate the blow with which Castiel struck him down. The others turned at his shout, allowing Dean to strike out at the largest of them. 

The other, whip-fast and vicious, turned on Castiel, and he found himself fighting for his life, pressed back to back with his batman. 

“Good to see you, Captain,” Dean shouted over the din of the battle.

“Likewise.” Castiel grunted as he caught a strike with the barrel of his gun and shoved. He swung with his sword, catching his opponent in the meat of his shoulder, pulling his blade free as blood welled from the wound, staining the blue uniform. 

Even an injury did not slow his opponent, however, and the French soldier struck out like a snake with his good arm, cutting a stinging slash into Castiel’s cheek, narrowly missing his eye.

There was no time to wipe the blood from his face, even as it dripped onto his red regimentals. Instead, Castiel tossed his head back to clear his vision, teeth bared as he set into his opponent again, more determined than ever. His opponent struck, Castiel dodged. Castiel feinted, then redoubled his attack, forcing the French soldier back a few steps, then a few steps more.

Behind him, he could hear Dean cursing. “Come on you French bastard,” he muttered. “I grew up in the gutters. I could take down ten of you with my eyes shut.” And maybe he could, because seconds later there came a shot, then a thud, and Dean was rounding on Castiel’s slippery opponent, fire in his eyes. With Dean hedging him in on one side, Castiel lunged. But before he could land the blow, fire shot up his leg, and it gave out, sending him tumbling into the mud with blood rushing from a long gash, where the man Dean had hamstrung and forgotten had slashed him open.

“Cas!” Castiel thought he heard, but already darkness was creeping in and spots forming in front of his vision. The sounds of the battle grew far away, even as he heard a gurgle, then a shout, then the sound of a body hitting the ground.

There were hands on his thigh, and that was odd, and then something being wrapped tightly around it, and then he was being hoisted, half-conscious, to hang over a sturdy pair of shoulders, an arm around his waist, and a voice urging him, “Come on, Captain. I need you to work with me. Come on, one step, that’s it.”

Each step was screaming agony, and with each one he retreated further and further away from himself as the blackness encroached. Slowly, painstakingly, they made their way off the battlefield.

*****

When Castiel came to, he found himself in a proper bed, in a dim bedchamber. There were hands on his thigh again, and he made an inquiring noise. The hands immediately retreated.

“Captain.” A blurry figure with green eyes materialised by Castiel’s pillow. “You’re awake.”

Castiel blinked several times to force his vision to focus. He felt weak and grubby and not at all himself. “Dean,” he croaked, when the figure resolved itself into that of his batman, a worried pinch between his brows. “Winchester,” Castiel corrected himself. While he felt the rules of formality ought to be relaxed among men who daily risked their lives together, there were those who did not, and if they were to hear him, the censure would fall upon his servant, rather than himself.

“Here, have a nip of brandy, sir.” Embarrassingly, Castiel had to let Dean guide him upright with an arm about his shoulder and hold the flask to his lips to allow him to drink the amber liquid within. 

With his throat wetted, he was able to grumble, as he was lowered back down against the pillow. “I do not know why I feel so infernally weak.”

“That would be the fever.” The hands returned to Castiel’s thigh, and this time he realized they were Dean’s, strong and sure and calloused. He coloured, and tried to move his leg away. Dean clamped down on it and cast him a stern look, not at all deferential. “I need to change your dressings.” Fully expecting Castiel to comply, despite their positions, he began to do just that. “You have been abed for several weeks now. The initial wound festered, and the doctor was forced to reopen it. You have been kept asleep with laudanum while you recovered.”

Castiel nodded along, trying not to pay attention to the careful strength with which Dean cleaned and rebandaged his wound. If there was one advantage to his current weakness, it was that certain parts of his anatomy did not react to the proximity. Dean was a beautiful man, but Castiel prided himself on being a honourable one. There were some lines he would not cross.

A thought occurred as he determinedly focused his mind on other things, and he frowned at the realisation. “Why am I in a private room?” he asked, glancing around at his surroundings. “Why am I not in a field hospital? Whose home is this?” While officers were allowed many privileges that common soldiers were not, Castiel was hardly so elevated in rank as to be afforded a private convalescence. At the very least, he ought to be in an officers' wing with the other injured of his rank.

He watched Dean freeze at his questions, an odd look written across his face. “The hospitals have cleared out all but the most dire cases by now, sir,” he answered, his evasion clear in the use of the honorific. 

“Have there been so many more injured, then?” he asked, fearing the worst.

“No,” Dean contradicted him. “The opposite. Old Boney’s been captured while you were ill. The war is over.”

“Oh,” Castiel says, then, “oh,” again. This was good news. This was very good news. They had ended their sojourn in the demesne of death. But…“There is something else.”

Dean rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Yes,” he admitted at last. He retrieved a folded letter, previously overlooked, from the nightstand. “I hope you don’t mind, I had to read it while you were unconscious.” There was something both defensive and proud in the way he said it, his ability to read hard-earned by candlelight in Castiel’s tent over long months. 

“My brother learned,” he’d told Castiel, when the subject had first been broached, “but I never had the opportunity.”

Castiel had treasured those lessons perhaps more than he should.

“Is it bad news?” he asked now, absently accepting the letter from Dean’s hand. He recognized the handwriting as that of his sister, Hannah.

“It is,” Dean said, solemn, as Castiel unfolded the letter. 

He didn’t read it, instead looking expectantly at his trusted batman to deliver the news. 

“There has been an accident. Your brother is dead. You are the new Earl of Milton.”

*****

“What will you do?” Castiel asked on the day he was finally strong enough to begin preparations to return to England and take on his new role as Lord Milton. It was still a shock to think of Michael gone, of himself in his stead. His older brother had always seemed so distant and untouchable. That he could be killed by something so mundane as an overturned curricle, while Castiel had watched men die by the dozens on the battlefields of the continent, seemed unthinkable. And yet, he was gone.

Most of Castiel’s men were long gone, many shipped out in the weeks while he was ill with fever. A few that had remained behind following the end of the war, while their own injuries healed, had stopped in to wish him—or more likely, Dean—farewell. Dean had remained with him, tending to Castiel’s needs, even though the house of their host was not lacking in servants even now. But now that Castiel had officially resigned his commission, Dean could remain his batman no longer. There were other assignments he might take with the army, or he might return to England and find work of a different kind.

There was very little Castiel would miss about the war, but Dean, he would miss.

Dean paused where he was carefully packing away Castiel’s belongings in a wooden trunk, in preparation for the journey back to the English Channel and home. “I was thinking,” he said, his voice deliberately casual, “that I might like to learn to be a valet.”


	2. Chapter 1

Dean Winchester had grown up in the gutters of London. The son of an impoverished widow, he hadn’t expected much out of life beyond a hardscrabble existence and possibly boosting his younger brother out of the streets. For eighteen years, he had scrapped and schemed to keep food on their table and a roof, however leaky, over their heads.

At age eighteen, he had gone with a recruiting sergeant, the better to send his soldier’s wages back to his mother and brother. He had hardly expected to live through the war, let alone to find himself, these ten years later, carefully brushing dust from the sleeves of a coat of expensive buff superfine.

It was true that the expensive coat was not his, but he would have the privilege of dressing an attractive man in it, and then of admiring said attractive man, so it was not a great loss. Besides which, as the trusted valet of the Earl of Milton, he was still kept in far finer clothing than he could ever have imagined owning.

He had expected the muck and the stench and the death of war. He had not expected to be made batman to Captain Castiel Milton and had hardly known what the job entailed, let alone what to expect of the young, untried officer, the privileged brother of an earl, no less. Dean was all rough edges and plain-spokenness. He knew nothing of the world the captain came from, and no doubt the captain would wish to know nothing of Dean’s world. 

And yet, in that strange purgatory of war, they had rubbed on well together, been brothers in arms, become something close to friends—as close as two men of such disparate classes could—and when the war was over and Castiel had inherited his brother’s title, Dean had followed him back to England and become his valet.

He was not the typical valet. He had none of the manners, had not been brought up with the strict morality of the servant classes—stricter than that of their masters—and had never had reason to learn of fashion or the care of fine clothing. But he did possess skills the new earl valued far more: he was discreet, he was dependable, and he could solve most any problem. That he employed other, less savoury, skills to solve said problems...so long as his master maintained the polite fiction that he was unaware, Dean could maintain the fiction that he was only a simple valet.

In many other ways, he had adapted to the life. Some might bemoan the life of a servant, even an upper servant, but compared to his humble beginnings, to Dean it was the height of luxury. He lived in comfort, ate three meals a day, and sent money to his mother. He owed much to Castiel. There was nothing in the world that could induce him to give up his position.

Satisfied with his care of the garment he was brushing, Dean turned to replace it in its spot in the wardrobe. Behind him, he heard the door open, admitting Lord Milton. 

“Hello, Dean.”

“Captain.”

Between themselves, in private, they were still in the habit of addressing each other in the manner of their military days, though in front of others, Castiel was scrupulous about calling Dean by his last name, a mark of respect for an upper servant.

Dean took a moment to discreetly admire his master’s form. Castiel was a well-formed man, nearly as tall as Dean, with a handsome face, and dark, tousled hair cut in the fashionable Brutus style—Dean’s idea; Castiel had very little care for his own appearance, as evidenced by the fact that his hair was even more tousled than usual, and that his general person appeared rumpled and ink-stained, despite Dean having dressed him immaculately mere hours before.

“You have a talent for that, Captain.” Dean didn’t bother to mince his words, or his master to respond beyond a smiling eye-roll. Castiel Milton had a singular ability to get rumpled no matter what he was doing. 

It ought to have been a matter of professional pride, but despite himself, Dean found it hopelessly endearing.

It shouldn’t have. In their military days, Dean had seen the man covered in mud, in blood, in worse. He’d nursed him as he tossed and turned, drenched in sweat with fever, and held his breath against the sickly sweet smell as he’d tended to his festering leg. And yet, this simple thing made him seem vulnerable, approachable, touchable.

It was this sort of thing that led to Dean thinking dangerous thoughts, to thinking of touching, to thinking of him by his Christian name—an unthinkable intimacy, and yet, what was more intimate than the role of a valet? Dean cared for Castiel’s clothing and his person. He tended to his ablutions. He dressed him. He undressed him.

Sometimes he suspected that Castiel would welcome it, would be glad to hear his name in Dean's voice, would welcome the other intimacies even, but whenever Dean got that sense, no sooner would his master revert to being all that was distant and proper—as he well should.

It was enough to drive Dean mad.

Because if Castiel would take him up on it…

But this was not the time for such lustlorn—or lovelorn, much though he was loathe to admit to it—musings, Dean admonished himself. There was a furrow in Castiel's brow and a pensive cast to his features that Dean knew well.

"Something is troubling you."

Castiel sighed, his shoulders slumping slightly. "Indeed. My friends have come to me for aid with a difficult situation."

"What can I do?" Dean asked immediately. Castiel’s friends frequently relied upon him to solve their problems, and in turn, Castiel relied on Dean’s many skills, both orthodox and non. Together, they had smoothed over the many misadventures of Castiel’s cousin Gabriel Milton and friend Monsieur Balthazar Roche, extricated Miss Masters from an unwanted engagement to a Mr. Crowley, and contrived to see The Hon. Mr. Benjamin Edwards married to the woman he loved, despite those who objected to the colour of her skin. 

Now, however, Castiel hesitated, and Dean frowned. Were his skills suddenly in doubt?

"It's a matter of some delicacy," Castiel admitted at last.

"I can be delicate," Dean protested, mildly hurt. Despite his rough roots, he was perfectly capable of discretion, and Castiel often relied on it. That he would doubt it now stung.

Castiel's face fell, looking chastened. "Of course," he amended quickly. "I did not mean to imply otherwise. It's simply that...I would not like you to be disgusted. I care very much for my friends' happiness, even if it is not strictly within the bounds of propriety."

"So it is about your cousin's relationship with Monsieur Roche," Dean surmised. "No, it does not disgust me, or even shock me"—except perhaps the fact that  _ anyone _ would deem Mr. Gabriel Milton desirable, though he did not voice that wisecrack. "I know enough of the world to know that a man's head may sometimes be turned by something other than a woman."

There. That was nicely ambiguous. There was nothing in his words to incriminate him, but if his master were—as Dean often wondered—similarly inclined, then perhaps he would understand that Dean, too, sometimes had his head turned by a man.

But…

"It does not disgust  _ you _ ?" Dean asked cautiously.

"It does not," Castiel affirmed, biting his lip as if he wished to say something else. Whatever it was, he did not voice it, instead turning the conversation back to the dilemma at hand: Gabriel Milton and Balthazar Roche. "Unfortunately, not everyone feels the same. My cousin and Monsieur Roche have been targeted by a blackmailer."

That was serious indeed.

“What does the blackmailer want? Simply money? Neither your cousin nor Roche are in a position to exercise political clout or grant other favours.”

“Money,” Castiel confirmed. “And the opportunity to demand more in the future.” Both Gabriel and Roche had comfortable incomes, and for all their gambling and other extravagant behaviour, they were never reckless with their money. With the right leverage, a blackmailer could milk his hold over them for a long time to come. All while they spoke, Castiel’s eyes continued to linger on Dean’s face and then dart away, only to repeat the action. He swallowed and opened his mouth as if to speak, but then shut it again, still reticent.

Rather than push him, Dean pursed his lips in thought. “Is there proof, or is the blackmailer relying on the power of rumours?”

Castiel’s shoulders slumped. “There is proof. Love letters that Balthazar sent from France and my cousin kept. Gabriel has confirmed they are missing.”

*****

It was something of a relief that Dean had not reacted with disgust to learning the nature of Gabriel and Balthazar’s relationship. Nor had he objected to being asked to intervene to save them. 

It was far from the first time that Castiel—and by extension, Dean—had been called upon to extract the normally extravagant pair from one scrape or another, but Castiel had known from the moment they had presented themselves in the drawing room of his Richmond home that this situation was far more serious than anything that had come before.

One who had made the acquaintance of those gentlemen and of Castiel might wonder at their friendship. Where Gabriel and Balthazar were known for their wild, sometimes hedonistic ways, Castiel's reputation was one of seriousness and high-mindedness. Castiel was more restrained and quiet than his friends, more fond of the comforts of home than the social whirl, and that was too often mistaken for a sense of moral rigidity.

In truth, however, all three men shared a certain idealism about how the world ought to be, and a certain cynicism about how it actually was, that bound them together. Above all, Castiel had faith in  _ people _ , and he knew, deep down, his friends did too.

Castiel had first met Balthazar Roche as a schoolboy, some short years after he had been brought to England by his family, fleeing the Terror. In those days, the other boy had spoken mostly French and had kept to himself. But Castiel's French had been decent and he'd had the bed next to Balthazar, and so they had struck up a friendship that had lasted to this day, even after Balthazar had come oh-so-far out of his shell. Despite the louche, careless reputation Balthazar carefully cultivated these days, he was a loyal friend and a man of deep intelligence and quick wit.

It had been Castiel who had introduced him to Gabriel, his favourite cousin, the one whose sharp tongue and sardonic demeanour hid a gentler side—a side that  _ believed  _ in something and wanted to make his younger, oh-so-serious cousin laugh. Unsurprisingly, the two had found a kindred spirit in each other, and in Castiel’s opinion, they drew out the best in each other.

And so it was that his blood had turned to ice when Gabriel had uncorked Castiel’s decanter of brandy, and pouring, muttered those dreadful words: “Cassie, we’ve been found out.”

Castiel accepted the glass Gabriel offered him with numb fingers and took a deep swallow. “What happened?”

Gabriel passed a glass to his lover with a silent shoulder squeeze and poured one for himself, draining it in one go, expression dark.

“We’re being blackmailed,” Balthazar answered, face set in grim lines. “A letter arrived this morning.”

“Blackmail,” Castiel repeated, shaken. Men of their inclinations were too often vulnerable to such a thing. “How did they find out? And what do they want?”

“Read for yourself.” Gabriel’s tone was bleak. He produced a much folded letter from within his coat.

_ Gabriel Milton,  _ the letter read. 

_ Your shameful ways have been discovered, and those of Monsieur Balthazar Roche as well. You might have thought to hide behind your rakish ways, but your unnatural relationship has been uncovered and I have in my possession several damning letters, which will be revealed to the world, unless you pay the sum of _ —an amount that had Castiel’s eyes narrowing at the presumption— _ to buy my silence. _

_ I will grant you a week’s grace to procure the money, and then I will send a messenger around to collect. If you fail to pay, I am prepared to send the letters to  _ the Times _ for immediate publication. Best to keep your finances in good order: another request might be forthcoming in the future. _

_ Yours, _

_ A Knowledgeable Gentleman _

Castiel folded the letter back up again, running a finger over the creased edge with a thoughtful frown. “This is a serious matter indeed. Our blackmailer clearly intends to keep you on the hook for an indefinite amount of time. These letters he speaks of, do you believe he truly has them in his possession?”

“He does.” Gabriel grimaced, and his lover reached across to take his hand and squeeze it. “Baz wrote me when he had to travel to Rouen last year.” Balthazar had been obliged to make a three-month journey to the north of France to handle some family affairs. Gabriel had no excuse to accompany him, and so had stayed behind in the set of rooms he rented on Saville Row. “I ought to have burned them after reading, but I was sentimental, more fool me. And now they are missing.”

“You mustn’t blame yourself,  _ mon coeur, _ ” Balthazar insisted. “It is my fault; I was indiscreet in my letters when I ought not to be. Such things are not illegal in France, and in the headiness of that, I quite forgot that they are in England.”

Castiel drained the remainder of his drink with more alacrity than was his wont. “There is no use in taking the blame on yourselves. Let us lay it at the feet of the blackmailer, instead. Do you have any idea of who it might be? Who would have had knowledge and access to your letters?”

Gabriel frowned. “The obvious answer would be Armstrong, of course.” Marvin Armstrong was Gabriel’s manservant, a middle-aged man with untidy curls and a smug air. He had a tendency to be careless in his duties and to leave those only half done, despite his generous salary and comfortable position. Gabriel had kept him on regardless, because Armstrong had served his father, but was under no illusion that his loyalty had been rewarded with the like. 

He went on, “But I have seen ol’ Marv’s handwriting on household lists and bits of this and that. It is more like a chicken scrawl, nothing like this  _ billet doux.  _ If he is involved, he is not working alone.”

“I would say it is the hand of a gentleman,” Balthazar submitted. “One who takes pride in his penmanship. Look how precisely he formed his letters.”

Obligingly, Castiel opened the letter again, examining the handwriting closely. Something about it plucked at the strings of his memory, though no other conclusions were forthcoming. But there was yet more he could do. “Perhaps you would be willing to leave the letter with me? I will seek to identify our villain and put an end to this before you have to pay him a cent.”

*****

“It seems likely the letters were stolen by Mr. Armstrong,” Castiel explained now.

Dean pressed his lips together. Armstrong was a weaselly man and Dean was unsurprised he had proven untrustworthy.

“But he appears to be an accomplice,” Castiel went on. “I suspect the blackmailer is a gentleman, and one of my acquaintance besides. I simply need to recall where I have seen the handwriting before.” He withdrew a folded missive from within his waistcoat and handed it to Dean. Their eyes met as their fingers brushed.

Dean unfolded the letter and pored over it, pursing his mouth in displeasure at the threat. Castiel looked on, biting his lip.

Finally, Dean shook his head. “I do not recognize the handwriting. If it is a gentleman, you are more likely to discover that than I am. But there are other avenues we can pursue. For a start, if you call upon your cousin tomorrow, and bring me along, I will visit with Mr. Armstrong and learn what I can.” Dean did not relish the idea, as Armstrong was a smug, oily toad at the best of times, but he would do what was needed for Castiel’s sake.

“Thank you, Dean,” Castiel said. “I always value your assistance.” Once again, he seemed about to say something else, and once again, he stopped himself.

“Anytime, Captain.” Dean lifted one corner of his mouth in a wry smile. “And once we have discovered who our blackmailer is, I will retrieve the letters and ensure his silence. You need not worry for your friends for long. Now,” he skillfully redirected the conversation, to distract Castiel from his worries, “I believe you are expected at Lord Redfield’s for dinner. Will you wear the new royal blue waistcoat?”

Castiel’s eyes flicked back to Dean’s again and held, before he once more looked away. “Whatever you think is best. You have a much better eye for such things than me.”

“You make an excellent canvas,” Dean replied, flippant, turning away to find the coat before he could see how Castiel reacted to the compliment. Behind him, he heard Castiel draw in a breath, and then—

"Dean?" Castiel paused him with a hand on his shoulder, then withdrew it quickly, as if he'd been burned. Dean turned back and watched his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. "I'm like them," Castiel admitted. “I'm like Gabriel and Balthazar."

Dean stared at him. Now would be the time to confess, to admit that he liked men as much as he did women, perhaps even that he liked Castiel in particular. He ought to, but...now was not the time.

He turned back to the wardrobe. "Don't worry, Captain. Your secret is safe with me."

*****

Oh goodness. Castiel did not know what had possessed him to admit his deepest secret to Dean.

He allowed Dean to help him into his coat, but did not linger as he otherwise might. Without meeting Dean’s eyes, he uttered a brusque, “Thank you,” ducking away from Dean’s attempts to straighten his collar one last time. “I will not need to be attended to when I return. Please consider your evening free.”

With that, he ducked out of the room and set off to find his sister with more alacrity than an invitation to supper with the aged Lord Redfield could possibly merit.

It was not that he did not trust Dean. Far from it. They said no man was a hero to his valet. No doubt Dean was privy to all of Castiel’s foibles and embarrassments, and yet he had always carefully guarded Castiel’s secrets, and even those of his friends, as his own. Castiel valued Dean’s loyalty beyond gold.

No, Castiel trusted Dean.

But the fact of the matter was that Castiel has one other secret, even more carefully guarded, and now that Dean was aware that Castiel’s desires frequently turned towards men, surely he would deduce that Castiel desired him. He was far too perceptive not to.

For Castiel did desire Dean, above all men. And that was unacceptable.

A good man did not dally with his servants.

Even if it would not feel like a dalliance to Castiel. 

But no matter the state of his heart. 

At least Dean had not reacted with disgust to the revelation. 


	3. Chapter 2

“Absolutely not,” hissed Joanna Harvelle, the stillroom maid, giving Dean a sharp kick to the shin beneath the table. He flinched. Across the length of the table, the housekeeper, Joanna’s mother Ellen, Mrs. Harvelle, raised an inquiring eyebrow in their direction and they subsided under her quelling gaze. 

After Castiel’s abrupt and awkward departure, Dean had been left to contemplate his confession. 

It had not seemed the time, coming as it did on the heels of Castiel’s friends’ troubles, to add his own confession, but having witnessed his master’s discomfort, Dean had decided that it would be wise after all to alleviate Castiel’s fears with a confession of Dean’s own, sooner rather than later.

It could, in fact, be a boon, he had realized. After all, Dean had long suspected that there was a mutual attraction between them. 

Joanna waited until her mother’s attention was called away by raised voices between two of the lower housemaids and then she leaned back in, whispering harshly, “You cannot dally with a lord. Are you mad?”

“Hey,” Dean bit out around a mouthful of bread. He chewed and swallowed roughly and added, “I never said anything about any lord.”

Joanna snorted. “Oh, please. We all know which fine,  _ lordly _ derriere you’ve been panting after, and just because he might share your inclinations doesn’t make this suddenly a better idea.”

“Be careful what you’re insinuating,” Dean reminded her in an undertone. He had not named any names when confessing to her that he was thinking of proposing an affair to a man, having recently discovered the object of his affection preferred the male form. But Joanna was too well acquainted with him, and had put the pieces together. He did not want to see Castiel’s name dragged through the mud through her indiscretion.

“No one can hear me,” she pointed out, “and anyway, they have all politely looked the other way about me and Charlie, and about his lordship’s friends. That is not what I am concerned about.”

“Well, I for one think it’s terribly romantic,” cut in the aforementioned Charlie, Lady Hannah’s red-headed lady’s maid, and Joanna’s lover, leaning around Joanna to insert herself into the conversation.

“Romantic?” Joanna scoffed. “What’s romantic about getting tupped by a rich man for a few weeks or a few months, until he loses interest and turns you off with a pretty bauble—or perhaps without even that and without a character besides?”

Dean bristled at the insult to Castiel’s goodness, but—

“He wouldn’t do that!” protested Charlie, shocked.

Joanna took a long look into her face, before letting her shoulders drop. “You’re right,” she conceded grudgingly. “The man we are not naming is too honourable to do that. But the fact remains,” she insisted, “that the only outcome of such an affair is a broken heart.”

“No one is getting their heart broken.” Dean swiped a bread roll off Joanna’s plate and raised a defiant eyebrow, daring her to challenge him. “I am suggesting a mutually pleasurable—and convenient—liaison. There are no hearts involved.”

“Oh, please,” Joanna objected. “Are we, or are we not, discussing the man you have been in love with since he first brought you here from the Peninsula?”

Dean crammed the bread into his mouth. “That’s irrelevant,” he said around his mouthful, prompting twin exclamations of disgust from the young women and another evil eye from Ellen.

“And anyway, I don’t know why you insist it will end in heartbreak, Jo,” Charlie said, tilting her head to rest on her beloved’s shoulder, “when it’s clear to me that—he whom we are not naming—is every bit as in love with Dean.”

That seemed unlikely.

But despite his one friend’s misgivings and the flights of fancy of the other, Dean himself had settled on a course of action.

His emotions might be unreciprocated, but that did not mean his physical desires would be.

He had decided that he would seduce Castiel.

*****

Castiel had given Dean the evening free, and he expected that he would spend it out, perhaps in a public house, perhaps tumbling some comely, willing lass—Castiel had never considered it his right to ask how his valet spent his free evenings, but his traitorous imagination was all too willing to fill in the blanks. He did not expect Dean back until quite late, so it came as a surprise when, having arrived home at a respectable hour from supper with Lord Redfield, he opened the door to his dressing room and came face to face with Dean.

“Oh,” Castiel faltered, stopping in his tracks, just inside the doorway. “I thought—I did give you the evening off, did I not?”

“You did,” Dean agreed easily, “but there was something I wanted to discuss with you, my lord.”

Thrown by the honorific and the unfamiliar gleam in Dean’s eye, Castiel stood frozen like a startled deer at Dean’s approach. With a quirk of his—perfect—lips, Dean reached past Castiel and gently closed the door.

“I owe you an apology, Captain.” Dean’s voice was low, his mouth altogether too near Castiel’s ear for his composure to withstand. Certainly, he could not think what Dean could possibly need to apologize for. “You see,” Dean continued, pulling back so Castiel could see his whole face, “when you made your confession to me this evening, I misstepped. I ought to have made a confession of my own.”

That would not do. Castiel was keenly aware of the power he held over Dean’s life, a power he sought never to abuse. “Dean, your secrets are your own,” he protested, but Dean held up a hand to stop him.

“I am like you,” Dean stated, laying it out plainly. “I desire men.”

“Oh,” said Castiel.  _ Oh.  _ He had long indulged himself in dreams of hearing those words from Dean’s mouth, and yet it made no material difference. Dean was not for him.

Dean, however, had different intentions. “If I had known, Captain, perhaps we could have passed the war more pleasantly.” His voice was light, teasing, though something lurked in his eyes that Castiel could not read. “But now that we do know, wouldn’t it benefit us both to come to an arrangement?”

Everything in Castiel yearned to agree, but he must resist. “Dean…” The other man’s hand lifted to brush fingerpads lightly over the rough skin of Castiel’s jaw. Castiel squeezed his eyes closed with a shuddering breath. 

“What do you say, Captain?” Dean murmured, voice soft next to Castiel’s ear.

Castiel’s eyes fluttered open. “Dean,” he forced out. “I cannot.”

At once, Dean’s face shuttered and he stepped back. Castiel felt a pang deep in his chest. It was all he could do not to take back his words and step forward after him, accept what was being offered—but what kind of man would he be if he did?

“I apologize, my lord.” Dean drew himself up, stiff and unnatural. “It appears I have misunderstood the situation. You may rest assured that I shall not importune you again. Now, if you will excuse me, I believe I was granted the evening off.”

“Dean…” Castiel tried weakly, but faltered at the grimace on Dean’s face. At a loss for how to remedy the discomfort between them, he merely stepped aside, allowing Dean to leave, which he did with stiff shoulders.

The door swung shut, and Castiel let his head fall back against the cool plaster of the wall with a sigh. He allowed himself to rest there a long moment, before he gathered himself together, and wearily began stripping himself of his evening clothes, laying them aside carefully to be cared for in the morning.

Though it was not yet late, clad in a linen nightshirt, he crawled beneath his sheets. He wondered where Dean had gone, what he was doing. It was gone midnight by the time he slept, and his slumber was disturbed by dreams of strong hands and freckled limbs and green eyes.

*****

“What a blisteringly goddamn cock-arsed stupid idea,” Dean cursed as he strode angrily along Park Lane. Jo might have thought to warn him that a relationship between a lord and a servant could not last, and despite his denials, he had secretly been worried that he could not so easily set aside his romantic sentiments to engage in a purely physical relationship, but Dean had not considered the possibility of rejection.

He kicked at a pebble, sending it skittering away beneath his foot, clattering over the cobbles. When he was agitated as he was now, it helped to walk it out, striding through the streets of London or the park of Castiel's principal seat in Sussex, until the restlessness had shaken itself from his bones.

Dean was under no illusions as to the fact that he was considered an attractive man, tall and well-formed, even if somewhat bow-legged. He did not think that he had imagined the looks Castiel sometimes gave him—looks that had taken on new meaning after the confession of the day. Then, too, there was the matter of convenience. Finding a man who shared one's inclinations could be a difficult and risky proposition. Certainly, Dean had never known Castiel to pursue his desires—and as his valet, Dean was in the best position to know. Could Castiel not understand the advantages of having someone close at hand and willing and trusted?

Unless Dean had been wrong, and Castiel did not trust him as well as Dean had believed.

“Don’t be absurd,” Dean muttered to himself. Castiel had trusted him with rooting out the man who was blackmailing Gabriel and Balthazar for that very thing. His trust in Dean’s discretion was not in question.

What, then, had stopped him? Could it be that Dean, a servant, was simply beneath his touch? 

Castiel was not a man given to looking down on others due to distinction of class, but that did not mean that he would thus be delighted to take a lover from the lower orders, especially one from so mean a background as Dean’s. Perhaps he wanted a man who could accompany him to the entertainments of the Ton. Perhaps he wanted a man who was his intellectual equal—not Dean, who had only learned to read at age nineteen, who had had to be taught by Castiel himself.

Perhaps he thought that Dean would gain expectations of him.

If that last were the case, then maybe not all was lost. Maybe, if Dean went to him, and explained that he held no expectations, would ask no special favours, would cede his place in Castiel’s bed when he did find someone who was his equal, someone to truly love—maybe Castiel would accept him then.

And Dean would deal with the inevitable end when it happened.

As he had been deep in thought, Dean's pace had slowed, and now he drew to a halt beneath a gas lamp, heaving a deep sigh. The agitation of earlier had been replaced with melancholy.

No longer in the mood to walk, he considered his options. His evening was his own. He could take himself off to a public house and nurse a mug of ale and his sorrows, perhaps flirt with a comely barmaid to restore his wounded pride. But he found the idea held little appeal. 

Tomorrow, he must question Marv Armstrong, while not appearing to question him at all. He would be at his best if he were well-rested. Home to bed, it was.

He made a detour to the kitchens to fetch himself a cup of hot tea before bed. A light burned within, and around the rough-hewn wooden table, he found a small party of Joanna and Charlie, along with Ellen—Mrs. Harvelle—and the butler, Mr. Singer, affectionately known as Bobby only to those in his closest circle.

"Dean!" Charlie exclaimed upon spying him. "Did you come from the street? I thought for sure you would be—" She stopped abruptly with a glance at Ellen and Bobby, while Joanna rolled her eyes.

"No," Dean said. He cleared his throat. "No, there is nothing to report there. Nothing happened."

Charlie’s bearing changed immediately. "Oh, you poor dear," Charlie sympathized, drawing him down to sit beside her. Even Jo looked sympathetic in a way that made Dean wish he had said nothing to his friends. 

Ellen and Bobby merely raised their eyebrows at the young people and their oddity, and Ellen lifted the teapot to pour a cup for Dean. 

"I don't know what you're about, lad," she declared. "But join us for a cup. You look like you could use it."


	4. Chapter 3

No matter how early Castiel rose, Dean was always awake before him, the cot on which he slept in the dressing room cleared away, shaving accoutrements at the ready, and Castiel's raiment for the morning already laid out.

This morning, being a Thursday, Dean had also drawn a bath, water inviting and faintly steaming where it waited for Castiel.

Dean himself stood stiffly to attention beside the tub, a towel draped over his arm and his eyes averted while Castiel removed his nightshirt and lowered himself into the water. It was clear, Castiel thought as he lathered up his cloth to wash his limbs, that the awkwardness of the night before had not dissipated. 

It was quite possible he had hurt Dean's feelings—the last thing he had wanted to do.

Perhaps he ought to explain himself.

It was not easy to know where to start. Naked, in the presence of a man who would not even look his way, Castiel felt even more wrong-footed than usual.

There was nothing for it but to charge in. "Dean," he started. "I believe I owe you an explanation."

"You owe me nothing, sir," Dean hastened to assure him.

"Nevertheless," Castiel insisted, hating that  _ sir _ . "I feel I was not clear. It is not that your proposition yesterday was distasteful to me, or that your person is in any way objectionable. Indeed, you are a very handsome man. I am not immune to your charms."  _ Not at all.  _ "But I simply cannot accept. Surely you understand—the difference in our positions—it would not be right."

"I can assure you," Dean replied, "that I am conscious of the difference in our rank, and I would never presume to ask more of you than mere physical companionship. I would not wish to keep you from others of your class."

_ I wish you would,  _ Castiel longed to say.  _ I wish you would ask me anything, and I would give it to you. _

But he could say no such thing.

Shifting in the tub, Castiel shuffled forward until he could lean back and dunk his head beneath the water. When he came back up, Dean's hands were there, ready to massage the soap into his hair. It was all Castiel could do not to moan as strong fingers worked his scalp. He nearly lost track of his train of thought.

But he must disabuse Dean of his misapprehensions. 

"Dean, you must know how very much I desire you." Castiel bit back a whimper as Dean's fingers worked their magic. "I always have. It is not what you would ask of me that concerns me—it is what I would ask of you." It was as close to a confession as he could come, but oh how he wished for more. How he wished to lay his heart at Dean's feet.

But how could he ask that of a man who was beholden to him? He must end this conversation immediately before he threw his morals to the wind and begged like some pathetic creature at Dean's feet for him to pretend to feel the same love for Castiel that Castiel felt for him.

Please," Castiel said, in an attempt to change the subject. "We must prepare for our visit to my cousin and his manservant. I am quite apprehensive on behalf of Gabriel and Balthazar."

From the expression on Dean's face, Castiel knew the subject would not be forgotten, but nevertheless, he was relieved when Dean acquiesced, taking up a small cup and scooping up water to rinse Castiel's hair. 

Castiel bent forward, allowing Dean to pour the warm water over his head. It sluiced down around him as Dean murmured, "Very well, Captain."

Quite without meaning to, Castiel sighed. "I wish you would call me by my name," he murmured, despite himself.

He kept his head bowed, even as he could feel Dean staring at him.

At last, Dean murmured, oddly gentle, "Very well, Castiel."

******

Attending to Castiel’s bath was always a special kind of torture—all those miles of bare skin on display. And the little sighs and moans he made when Dean washed his hair were unfairly tantalizing. On more than one occasion, Dean had imagined letting himself fall to his knees beside the copper tub and take Castiel in hand, wringing another kind of sigh from him, perhaps even kissing him through it as he brought him to completion with his hand. 

Today, there had been the added torture of trying to negotiate where the boundary between them lay. Dean wasn’t entirely certain what to do with Castiel’s confession, but he felt like progress had been made. He ought to have feared further rejection, but something in him felt compelled to keep pushing, as if they were on the cusp of something, and he only had to find the right words to push them over the edge.

But just now, Dean was in for an entirely different, and much less pleasant, form of torture. Marvin Armstrong—”call me Marv”—Gabriel Milton’s manservant, was an overly cloying, insinuating type, with ambitions of leaving his tenure in service to become a writer. Dean had been privy to his writing before, on other occasions when he had accompanied Castiel on his calls before an appointment with the tailor or haberdasher. It was puerile stuff, thinly disguised  _ on-dits _ about the upper echelons of society, ripped straight from the newspapers with little to distinguish them or even give them the appeal of novelty.

Dean, needless to say, did not like him. And if the man was involved in the blackmail against men like himself and Castiel, well, Dean liked him even less.

“Welcome, my boy, welcome.” Armstrong ushered him into the kitchen of Gabriel’s apartments, while the gentlemen made themselves comfortable in the sitting room. “Let me just put on the kettle for their worships’ tea, and we can have a cozy chat.”

Dean hoped his expression looked more like a smile and less like he was baring his teeth in reaction to everything Armstrong had just said. 

“It’s good to see you,” he lied, taking a seat at the table as Armstrong bustled about preparing the tea. “I hope Gabriel Milton has not kept you too busy?”

As they chatted of this and that, with Dean always subtly steering the conversation back to Armstrong’s employer, he watched the man closely for tells, tics, nervousness. When Armstrong left the room to serve the tea and the small cakes that Gabriel preferred, Dean took the opportunity to quickly search through the room for any evidence he could find. Castiel would keep the man busy with questions about the cakes, ensuring more time for Dean to search.

Unfortunately, the search was fruitless, turning up only old household receipts. Upon hearing Armstrong approaching, Dean abandoned it and took his place at the table, as if he had never left.

“Your earl,” Armstrong grumbled, upon his return. “Never does anything even slightly scandalous. Gives a man nothing to write. Scandal sells, you know.”

“Does it?” Dean asked mildly, examining Armstrong closer.

Armstrong was never a well-kempt man. His greying curls flew every which way and he took no care with his clothing, something which pained Dean’s professional sensibilities—he may have learned to be a valet on the fly, but he prided himself on doing a job well. But now, Dean noticed, there was something downright shabby about him, where there hadn’t been on previous visits. 

Dean doubted that Gabriel would have paid or outfitted his servant so poorly—Gabriel had a tidy, independent fortune from his mother’s marriage lines, and Dean knew through overheard conversations with Castiel that he held with paying his servants well. But it was possible Armstrong had found himself in trouble some other way—in enough trouble that he would be tempted to sell his employer’s secrets to a blackmailer, perhaps. 

“Indeed.” Armstrong leaned closer over the top of the table, rubbing his hands together with a kind of glee that made Dean’s skin crawl. “You would be in no position to take advantage, what with his lordship being so morally upright, but me, you would be surprised what some people will pay for—a stack of letters, perhaps. Any day now, I am expecting a goodly sum for just that.”

Dean pursed his lips. “I hadn’t realized there was a market for such things.”

Armstrong chuckled in what he might have thought was an avuncular fashion. “Not a market, my boy. I was  _ approached _ .” He tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially. 

“Approached?” Dean asked, aiming for curious, but not overly so. There was a fine balance to be struck.

“Yes, yes. My cunning and cleverness do shine through, you know. Even a gentleman recognized them. ‘Anything you might find, which Mr. Milton would not like spread around,’ he asked me for, and I thought immediately of the letters he keeps hidden beneath the mattress. You see, I’ve fallen into some difficulties, attempting to publish my novel, and then, at the gaming tables, attempting to drum up the funds. And so I took him up on it. It was but the work of a moment to extract those letters from their hiding place. And ho, there was some juicy stuff in there!”

“What manner of gentleman pays for such things?” Dean asked, but Armstrong seemed to remember himself, for at last he clammed up. 

“I’m afraid I ought to keep that information hush-hush. You understand. But perhaps if you learn something you wish to sell him, I can act as a go-between.”

“How very generous of you,” Dean demurred. “I may just take you up on that.”

*****

Castiel did not get the opportunity to learn what Dean had discovered upon their return, as his sister called him into the drawing room to take tea—more tea, though at least Hannah’s taste leaned more towards something less saccharine than the very sugary tea cakes Gabriel preferred. 

Castiel’s visit with Gabriel had been tense. Gabriel had done his best to behave as his usual frivolous self, particularly in front of Armstrong when he had served the tea, but Castiel could see that the blackmail was weighing on him.

“You seem distracted, brother,” Hannah murmured, when Castiel’s attention drifted once again. His mind was occupied with his friends’ predicament, and more personally with the state of affairs between him and Dean. He had not been able to forget, even for a minute, Dean’s proposition and his own longing to accept, propriety and his own finer feelings be damned.

“I apologize,” he answered now. “Do please tell me about the work you are doing with the Angels of Mercy.”

The Angels of Mercy was one of a number of Hannah’s charitable causes. Never one to display interest in men or matrimony, she had remained unmarried, despite Michael’s urging when he had been alive, and had devoted her efforts to good works and championing various causes. Castiel, for his part, had done nothing more to push her in the direction of marriage. Unlike many women even of their own class, Hannah had a comfortable fortune of her own and could continue to live well, even if something were to happen to him and the title were to pass to Cousin Raphael. Besides which, Castiel appreciated his sister’s company and usually took a great deal of interest in her charities himself.

If only his thoughts were not so burdened today.

A knock on the drawing room door interrupted Hannah, and Daniel, one of the footmen, responded to Castiel’s call to enter.

“Begging your pardon, my lord, Lady Hannah. An invitation has come, and I am told it is short notice.”

“Thank you, Daniel.” Hannah accepted the note, allowing the footman to return to his post. “Tonight,” she muttered, frowning as she read the note. “Whatever is Bartholomew thinking?”

“Hmm?” Castiel asked, and she passed the paper over. It was a short missive, inviting Castiel and Hannah to a dinner party at the home of Bartholomew Harrington, a second cousin of theirs and of Gabriel’s.

“He says our invitations were missed when the others were sent out a week ago,” Hannah mentioned tartly. “Which means that a couple must have cancelled at the last minute and we are the substitutes.”

“It seems likely,” Castiel agreed. He and Bartholomew had been friends as boys, but there was something insincere about the man Bartholomew had become that Castiel disliked and distrusted. He might very well have been tempted to decline the invitation and let Bartholomew struggle to find two other more unwitting victims with which to gild his party, but something about the missive caught his eye.

He read it again, a plan forming. 

“Shall I write to refuse?” Hannah asked, but Castiel stayed her.

“No, please. If you do not have another engagement this evening, I think I would like to accept.”

Hannah gave him a curious look, but did as he requested. Castiel finished his tea, and excused himself, ostensibly to take care of some business from his estate manager, but really to summon Dean to his study and share their discoveries from the day.

Though Dean gave Castiel a speaking look, there was pressing business to attend to. “Armstrong is indeed the thief who stole the letters,” Dean informed him once the heavy oaken door was shut behind him. “He told me as much himself. He is heavily in debt, and was approached by a gentleman seeking any information that would discredit Mr. Milton.”

“So he is not targeting Gabriel out of true moral outrage,” Castiel surmised. “He is merely an opportunist. That is good to know.”

“Unfortunately, I was unable to discover the name of the gentleman,” Dean said. “But Armstrong seemed to believe that I might have some information of my own to sell, and wished to make himself the middle-man, presumably to cut himself in on my profits. With your permission, I propose I go to Armstrong, claiming to have scandal to sell that concerns you. I could then follow him discreetly and let him lead me to our blackmailer.”

“That is a good plan, indeed,” Castiel agreed. “But it will be unnecessary. I have discovered the blackmailer’s identity.” He showed Dean the blackmailer’s letter and the invitation from that afternoon. “I had thought the handwriting seemed familiar, and when this invitation arrived today, I discovered why. My cousin Bartholomew is at the heart of this, and I propose that we stop him.”

Dean’s eyes lit up, plans already forming in his expressive face. “Then I will need to retrieve Mr. Milton’s letters. But first, I may pay a call on Mr. Harrington’s valet. We will reconvene when it is time to dress you for dinner and make our plans.”

“Dean,” Castiel said, unable to resist putting a hand on Dean’s shoulder, taking comfort from his solidity and strength. “Thank you. And please, be safe.”

A spark of affection and—what? Hope?—passed across Dean’s face. A small smile touched the corners of Dean’s mouth, and Castiel felt himself get caught up in his verdant gaze. Oh so softly, one of Dean’s hands lifted to rest feather-light against Castiel’s cheek, drawing him in so slowly that he could have pulled away at any moment, if only he weren’t so mesmerized by the man he had been in love with for so long. 

Dean’s lips met his, barely there, then ever so slightly firmer, a slow press and slide, and despite himself, Castiel let his eyes flutter closed and his mouth part. Dean caught Castiel’s lower lip between him own, and then released him, pulling back to murmur, “I will, Cas.”

Castiel blinked after him, dazed.


	5. Chapter 4

As much as Dean would like to dwell on that kiss and strategize about how to receive more, how to drop Castiel’s defenses until they could exchange them every day, there were more pressing matters to attend to.

After the kiss, Dean had departed in the direction of Regent Street. Despite being a second son from a junior branch of the family, Harrington didn’t rent a mere set of rooms like so many young bachelors did. Instead, he rented an entire house, and kept a good-sized staff as well, including his valet. Dean could not recall ever hearing of Harrington being possessed of a fortune, or even of having more than a moderate income. It was very likely, in fact, that the man was living well beyond his means, which explained why he had turned to blackmailing his more fortunate cousin to supplement his coffers.

His destination reached, Dean presented himself at the servants’ entrance to Harrington’s home, where he explained his mission to the housemaid who answered the door—or rather, his ostensible mission, to examine Harrington’s wardrobe and ask questions of his valet in the hopes of outfitting Lord Milton similarly. Harrington’s valet being a cheerful, gregarious fellow, Dean was soon granted access, and able to do reconnaissance with barely more than a few innocuous questions and a nudge in the right direction.

When he left an hour or so later, the directions to Harrington’s preferred haberdashers, bootmakers, and tailors in hand, it was with a very good idea of where the letters could be found.

He told Castiel as much as he dressed him in the snowiest of white linen under a closely cut black evening coat, with a sapphire blue embroidered waistcoat providing a pop of brilliant colour which brought out Castiel’s eyes to devastating effect. It was enough to tempt Dean to rumple him once again with sweet, hungry kisses—the kind he now knew Castiel wanted as much as he did, even if he was reluctant to give in—but now was not the time. Castiel had to make nice around Harrington’s table, and Dean had incriminating letters to acquire.

If Lady Hannah thought it was odd that her brother insisted on bringing his valet to cool his heels in Harrington’s servants’ hall during dinner, she said nothing of it, and instead opted to bring along her own lady’s maid as well. Dean was glad for Charlie’s company, and she was more than willing to distract Harrington’s servants while Dean slipped away, without questioning him as to why.

“I have my own ways of discovering things,” she had said, which was entirely true. “I’ll keep an ear out while we’re there, shall I? You never know what will come in handy. In the meantime, here’s a tidbit I learned about our Mr. Harrington.”

She stretched up to whisper it in Dean’s ear, and Dean’s eyebrows crawled upwards, impressed. If Charlie had been in charge of England’s spy networks, old Boney would have been defeated long before Dean ever set foot across the channel.

True to her word, Charlie managed to keep Harrington’s servants spellbound with her quick wit, while Dean slipped away. At this time of day, the corridors were empty, the servants either attending to their master and his guests, or enjoying their own supper in the servants’ hall. It was not difficult to slip into Harrington’s study, nor to pick the lock on his desk, nor to locate the false bottom and extract the letters. That done, Dean replaced everything as it had been.

With one small, short detour, he rejoined the group ‘round the servants’ table, and passed the rest of the evening in good company.

******

“Your letters.” Castiel handed the stack of folded letters to his cousin, prompting a glad cry of joy from him, and from Balthazar, in whose apartments—adjoining Gabriel’s own—they were meeting. 

“Cassie!” Gabriel embraced him with enough force to knock his taller cousin off balance. “You are the light of my life. You are the wind beneath my wings.”

“Please,” Castiel grimaced wryly, “save that for Balthazar.”

Balthazar chuckled and took his place on the settee, motioning Castiel to a nearby armchair, while Gabriel took the place beside him and leaned his head on Balthazar’s shoulder. “However did you retrieve them, and so quickly.”

Perhaps, Castiel thought, it was time he revealed some of his secrets. “I must confess it was not a solo effort. Dea—Mr. Winchester—did a great deal of the work, and was the one to retrieve the letters.”

Gabriel and Balthazar exchanged a look, then glanced over towards the door of the kitchen where Dean waited on Castiel with Balthazar’s manservant Philippe LeChat. LeChat, being of a similar inclination as the gentlemen, could be trusted in his discretion. 

“You trust Winchester, then?” Gabriel asked, his tone hinting at something unsaid.

“Of course,” Castiel answered promptly. “I trust him with my life.”

“Of course,” Balthazar repeated, amused and knowing. He raised a lazy eyebrow. “Is he that talented in bed, then?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Castiel protested stiffly. “I would have thought you’d be more interested in your blackmailer than in making baseless speculations about my personal life.”

Another glance was exchanged between the couple. “You’re right,” Gabriel conceded. “We can discuss Cassie’s undying love for his valet later. Let us deal with this unpleasant business first. My love,” he looked at Balthazar. “Much as I appreciated your letters, particularly the very stirring passage referencing the shape and heft of—”

Castiel cleared his throat pointedly.

“Ahem. Yes. Much as I appreciated your letters, I have learned a lesson that perhaps it was not wise of me to keep them. With your permission, I will consign them to the flames.”

“By all means,” Balthazar agreed. “One could find a more secure hiding place, but even so, an excess of caution is never amiss. Consign away, my dear.”

Into the fire the letters went, their edges singeing and curling before being licked over by the flames. 

“Suppose you tell me on whom I ought to turn the evil eye,” Gabriel asked Castiel as the letters burned away. 

“You were right to suspect your manservant’s involvement,” Castiel informed him. “As Dean discovered, Armstrong is the one who stole the letters on behalf of the blackmailer.”

Balthazar tsked. “I knew that man could not be trusted. Did I not tell you, Gabriel?”

“I shall dismiss him posthaste,” Gabriel promised.

“Not quite posthaste,” Castiel cautioned. “It would not do for the man to seek revenge. Give me but a day or two more, to move the last pieces into place, and he will be on a ship to Nova Scotia, along with our cousin Bartholomew, who is the schemer you sought.”

Gabriel whistled low. “Old Barty, you say? I always did think the man was a snake, though I never took him for an uptight moralizer. I mean to say, he’s not exactly pure as the driven snow himself.”

Balthazar smirked. “The whispers I have heard about that man.”

“I’m not sure I wish to learn,” Castiel remarked drily. “I gather his motive was more avarice than morality. He merely targetted you because he thought you likely to have secrets.”

“I shall endeavour to be more overt in my dissolution,” Gabriel declared. “That way, no one will suspect that there is anything else.”

“A commendable solution.” Castiel’s eyes darted in the direction of the kitchen, wondering how Dean was faring. Unfortunately for him, his friends caught the glance.

“Ah, I see how it is,” Balthazar teased. “Now that you have saved us from ourselves, your friends no longer hold your attention. You have eyes for nothing but your handsome valet. Have you really never taken a tumble with him?”

“Of course not,” Castiel insisted. “He is my servant. How could I possibly take advantage?”

Gabriel snorted. “It’s hardly taking advantage if he’s all for it, too. I have eyes. I‘ve seen the way he looks at you. Can you honestly say you believe he doesn’t want you?”

“Well, I…” Castiel had to concede that he could not. He had it from Dean’s own mouth. 

“Besides, darling,” Balthazar soothed when it was clear no words would be forthcoming. “It’s hardly just a tumble to slake your thirst. We’re your friends, and we know full well you’ve been in love with Winchester for years.” He reached out to pat Castiel’s hand.

“But don’t you see?” Castiel hung his head, his voice hollow with misery. “That is worse.”

*****

Dean had refrained from pressing his case with Castiel while they manoeuvered the last few pieces on the board, but two days later found them reconvened in Castiel’s study in the midafternoon, the last elements of their plan in place. They were completely alone, Lady Hannah out making calls and the other servants either out on errands or at their stations in other parts of the house. The heavy door was closed between them and the world.

“It is done,” Dean confirmed, and noted the pleased gleam in Castiel’s eye, the gleam he knew now also hid a tightly leashed desire. It proved altogether too tempting.

“Captain,” Dean moved forward. “Castiel. Surely we ought to address our mutual desire.”

Castiel took a step back. “There is nothing to address,” was his stiff answer, though, now that he knew to look, Dean could see the yearning in the lines of his body. “I will not take what is not freely offered.”

“Castiel.” Dean stepped forward again, nearly boxing him in against the heavy walnut desk. “I am offering.” To prove his point, he leaned in, brushing his lips along the corner of that finely shaven jaw that called to him so.

With a pained noise, Castiel leaned back over the desk, out of the reach of Dean’s lips. “Freely offering, Dean. I cannot ask so much of you.”

Dean could have thrown his hands up in frustration. "I do not know how to be any clearer about what I am offering. It is evident that you want me as well. Why do you insist on holding back?"

" _ Dean _ ." Never had his name sounded so agonized in Castiel's mouth. The earl pressed himself back further against the desk, as if it might melt away behind him. "They say that no man is a hero to his valet, but please, do not make me play the villain to you."

“Castiel.  _ Cas _ .” Everything in Dean softened. “You could not be a villain to me. Whatever sense of honour or what-have-you is preventing you from allowing yourself to have this, let it go. I promise, I want this.” He touched a hand to Castiel’s cheek, and felt Castiel press back for the briefest of seconds.

But his expression was still mournful. “Dean, you don’t understand. If this were about a mere slaking of our lusts, perhaps you would have persuaded me by now. But I want so much more from you than just your body, things I have no right to ask, that I would never dare ask you to reciprocate.” He blinked those sad blue eyes that Dean could drown in. “I am in love with you. I don’t expect you to—”

But before he could continue, before Dean could truly take in the wonder and the gratitude that his feelings were returned, before he could reassure Castiel that he was not alone in this, that Dean did reciprocate—before any of that, the door to the study slammed open and Bartholomew Harrington stalked in.

Dean and Castiel sprang apart, but Harrington was seemingly too agitated to notice. His normally perfectly coiffed blond hair was in startling disarray.

“Your footman tried to tell me you were not at home, but this is an emergency, so I overruled the rude fellow, and lo, here you are.”

“Here I am,” Castiel agreed mildly, while Dean slipped around behind Harrington and fastened the door, before taking a station in the corner of the room, unheeded. “What can I do for you, Bartholomew?”

“You have a reputation for solving problems,” Harrington said. “And I have one for you. My mother presented herself on my doorstep this morning, bearing passage to Nova Scotia. She expects me to be on a ship before the week is out. What’s more, she called together all my servants, informed them that I would not be paying them, and took them into her service. All of them! Even my valet. What does that woman need with a valet?”

“I can’t begin to imagine,” Castiel murmured, quietly impressed. Naomi Harrington, Bartholomew’s mother, might be thoroughly unpleasant to be around, but she was a paragon of efficiency and judgement. It was why Castiel had sent her word of her younger son’s doings.

“I cannot be without a valet. Even in the wilderness of the colonies—not that I will bow to her will and go—I must have some measure of civilization.”

“Oh, you will have a valet,” Castiel said, voice cool. “Mr. Armstrong will be going with you.”

“Who?” Harrington asked blankly, too distracted to pick up on Castiel’s implication.

“Mr. Armstrong. Cousin Gabriel’s manservant and your recent accomplice.”

_ There it was.  _ Angry revelation burned in Harrington’s eyes as he realized Castiel must know more than he had said. “If you know that, you must know of Gabriel’s disgusting habits. I have letters—vile, unspeakable letters—as proof.”

“I think you will find you do not,” Castiel corrected. “And any such letters that might once have existed have gone up in smoke, as it were.”

“But you know,” Harrington insisted. “Are you not revolted?”

“I know nothing of what you speak. I am far more revolted that you would seek to extort and defame your own kin. We were friends once, but I do not wish to know you now. And if you think the word I dropped in your good mother’s ear is the extent of the cards I hold, be warned. You will disavow all evidence you believe you have against our cousin, you will board that ship, and you will sail to Nova Scotia. If you return within this lifetime, be assured, I have more than enough to ensure that you are never welcomed into society again. Do I make myself clear?”

“You are bluffing,” Harrington sputtered. “You are merely trying to scare me on behalf of those, those—”

Castiel leaned forward and whispered something into his ear. Dean had the satisfaction of watching the blood drain from Bartholomew’s face. 

“Do not underestimate my sources.”

Face white and set, sneer half slipping from his lips, Harrington stalked out of the room. He forgot his hat.

“I’ll send a footman round with that, shall I?” Dean remarked as the door closed behind him. His eyes met Castiel’s and they shared a shaky laugh.

As the air in the room lightened, Castiel’s laughter slipped away, leaving him somber once again. “Dean—”

“Castiel,” Dean interrupted. “In case it was not abundantly clear, I am in love with you, too. I have been since the war, and no amount of high-minded self-denial on your part will change that.” 

Castiel made a faint choking noise, and Dean crossed the room to him, taking his hands in his own. 

“If I swear to you that you are not taking advantage of me, can we please explore this thing that is between us?”

“You swear,” Castiel said, “That if I ever,  _ ever,  _ ask for anything you do not want, you will tell me so? If you ever tire of me, you will not feel obligated to continue?”

“That’s highly unlikely.” Dean ran his thumb lightly over the back of Castiel’s hand, holding his fathomless blue gaze. “But I swear.”

“Alright.” Castiel nodded decisively, but made no further move.

“Alright?” Dean repeated, laughter in his voice, as giddiness welled up inside of him. “Is that all?”

“No, it is not.” And with that, Castiel affixed his mouth to Dean’s own, sweet and hungry and with far more firmness than his previous doubts belied. 

Dean kissed him back with the fervour of a man faced with an angel. When they pulled apart to catch their breath, he grinned. “That’s more like it.”

Castiel pulled him in by the neckcloth.

*****

“Upstairs?” Some ten minutes later, Castiel panted the word. Pressed up against the desk as he was, he made a glorious picture, tousle-haired and rumpled and pink in the cheeks, lips swollen from kissing. Where Dean’s hands usually carefully dressed him, here they had done the opposite, putting him into delicious disarray.

Dean himself was no better off. His qualms put aside, Castiel had advanced with a determination reminiscent of his military campaigns. Never had Dean been so stirred in his life.

“We could,” Dean agreed, pressing forward so that Castiel could feel his hardness against his own. In between kisses to that tempting throat, he continued, “We could part and put ourselves in order and make our way sedately to your bedchamber as if nothing were awry, or”—and here he paused to suck a bruise into the tender flesh that would normally be covered with the neckcloth currently discarded at their feet—”or, I could lay you out on this nice, sturdy desk, and take you apart, bit by bit, with my mouth.”

Castiel groaned his approval into Dean’s shoulder. “Move the inkwell, and hand me my cravat?”

“What do you need your cravat for?” Dean asked, already lowering himself down to retrieve it. The movement brought him face to face with the fall of Castiel’s trousers, straining with his arousal, and he took a moment to nuzzle his face against it, while Castiel’s eyes squeezed shut and his mouth dropped open in desire.

Thoroughly pleased with himself, Dean rose to his feet.

Castiel’s eyes fluttered open. “I need it,” he stated, “because I believe you will have to gag me.”

Dean’s cock jumped within the confines of his trousers, and he dropped his head to rest briefly against Castiel’s shoulder. “You shall be the death of me, Captain.”

When their mouths met again, it was with the hunger of a decade of longing. As Dean kissed Castiel breathless, he deftly unbuttoned his jacket and waistcoat, sliding them down his arms and off, and breaking the kiss to drag his white linen shirt over his head. 

The clothes were discarded here and there, with no care for the state of the fabric. But then, Dean would be the one to care for them later, so liberties were to be taken.

Stepping back to admire his handiwork, Dean let his hands roam over the bare, golden skin of Castiel’s torso, the fabric of the neckcloth following after, the faintest of teases. Dean drew the sweetest sound from Castiel’s lush mouth as he dragged a thumb over one dark, pebbled nipple. 

“Turn around, my lord,” he urged, “if you would like me to keep you quiet.”

If Castiel’s chest was a marvel, then choirs of angels ought to sign paeans to the musculature of his back. Dean allowed himself to be momentarily distracted, kissing a hot trail down the line of his spine. 

“Dean.” Castiel let out a shuddering moan, and Dean remembered his purpose. He straightened and brought up the neckcloth as Castiel opened his mouth to permit him, and fastened it firmly around his head with a deft knot.

He finished his work with a kiss pressed to the thin skin behind Castiel’s ear, then turned him around to admire the picture he made. 

“Very handsome.” Dean touched a thumb lightly to the place where Castiel’s pink lips parted around the white fabric. Castiel’s whimper was muffled. “I daresay this will become the latest in gentlemen’s fashion.” He pressed a kiss to Castiel’s gagged mouth. “Onto the desk, Captain.”

Obligingly, Castiel perched on the edge of the desk and went willingly as Dean laid him back, taking a moment to caress his cock through his falls, before stepping back to strip off his own jacket and half-untied neckcloth. From his prone position, Castiel craned his head upwards to watch as Dean unbuttoned his waistcoat and undid the fastening at the neck of his shirt, allowing it to hang half-open over his chest.

Unable to wait any longer, Dean reached for the falls of Castiel’s trousers and in a few short moves had bared him of those and of the smallclothes beneath. 

As his valet, Dean had seen Castiel naked before, many, many times, but never like this. Never spread out before him like a feast, gagged, flushed, and erect. He was beautiful.

Dean bent over him, taking one peaked nipple into his mouth, as his hands traced down Castiel’s sides. As he moved on to press hot, open-mouthed kisses down Castiel’s chest, Castiel’s cock dragged against the linen of his shirt, leaving a damp patch behind, where the tip of him was already glossy from desire. Castiel squirmed beneath him, trying to urge Dean towards where he wanted him most, but Dean had promised to take Castiel apart with his mouth, and he had every intention of taking his time.

*****

Over their many years together, Castiel had often dreamed of Dean’s mouth, but he had never imagined it would be quite like this, enough to drive a man to delirium. Dean mouthed hotly over a hipbone, his fingers tracing streaks of fire down Castiel’s sides, making him shudder. He wanted to cry out, to beg Dean to take him in his mouth and relieve the fever that was burning through his body, but his mouth was gagged, the fine silk of his own neckcloth damp with his saliva, only heightening his pleasure. His hands buried themselves in Dean’s hair and Dean let out a dark groan against his skin.

Dean was still mostly dressed, but Castiel could see the shine of sweat at his clavicle, visible through the open neck of his shirt. He longed to see more of him, longed to see him bare, to worship with his eyes and hands what he had only imagined before. He tugged Dean upwards by his hair and plucked at his shirt, hoping Dean would get the picture.

Dean met his eyes with a grin, and holding eye contact except when his vision was obscured, swept the shirt off over his head. Much to Castiel’s disappointment, he did not drop his own straining trousers, but any disappointment he felt was soon swept away as Dean bent and engulfed Castiel in the soft, wet heat of his mouth. 

He cried out as best he could around the gag, and could feel Dean’s hum of satisfaction around him as Dean began to move. It was unlike anything Castiel had ever felt before, unlike anything he had ever dreamed of, and it was all he could do to clutch at whatever part of Dean he could reach as Dean brought him to the brink again and again.

Dean pulled away, and Castiel tried to make an unhappy noise around his gag. 

“Not yet, sweetheart,” Dean murmured. “There’s a little something I want to try first.” With that, he dropped to his knees before the desk, and, wrapping his arms around Castiel’s legs to hold them apart, leaned in. The tip of his tongue delved in where Castiel had not imagined a tongue could go. 

Castiel’s back arched sharply as the unfamiliar sensation sent sparks through his body. Dean’s tongue laved over his hole, flat and broad, and then pointed and wiggling as if seeking entrance. Castiel’s legs fell open further as if to let him in, and Dean pressed forwards.  _ Oh lord,  _ it was the most heavenly thing Castiel had ever experienced, a hundred sensations at once, and sweet, slow, wet heat that he could drown in. If he could, he would be chanting a litany of Dean’s name.

“Shhh, sweetheart,” Dean panted against the tender inside of Castiel’s thigh as he took a break to catch his breath. “I’ll take care of you.”

With that, he delved forward again, as one of his strong hands came forward and wrapped itself firmly around Castiel’s aching cock, giving him a slow stroke. Then, gathering wetness on his fingers, he took up a quick, gliding rhythm in counterpoint to the sweet torture of his mouth down below.

It was so much, it was  _ too much _ , and overwhelmed with arousal, with heat, with love, Castiel shuddered violently, spilling hot over Dean’s hand.

Dean stroked him through it, laying soft kisses on the sensitive skin of Castiel’s thighs, until he could take no more, and weakly leaned down to push Dean away.

Dean rose, wiping his hand on his trousers. His face was shiny and flushed, heat still burning in his gaze, though banked, as he stepped forward to help Castiel sit up and loosen the gag, gently removing it from his mouth.

“You were magnificent,” he rasped. “May I kiss you?”

“Please,” Castiel said, uncaring of where Dean’s mouth had been, only desperate to have it against his own once more. Given free rein to love Dean as he would, he wanted to never stop touching Dean, tasting him, wanted to be as close to him as possible without becoming one being.

They kissed, long and lush, the fine wool of Dean’s trousers rubbing against the sensitive flesh of Castiel’s lower half, his rock hard cock pressing into the crease of Castiel’s hip, hot even through the fabric.

“I need to see you,” Castiel begged against Dean’s lips. “Please, I need to see you.You have seen me bare so many times, but I have never seen you.”

“Well, that hardly seems fair.” Dean’s flirtatious tone was belied by the shaking of need in his own voice. He stepped back, his fingers fumbling with the buttons of his falls once, twice, and then succeeding, and then he was standing in front of Castiel, naked and beautiful and the only thing Castiel had ever seen that was worthy of worship.

Worship he did. Castiel’s hands tucked themselves around Dean’s hipbones and Castiel fell to his knees, pressing his face into the hot, slightly sweaty skin where Dean’s leg met his body. He pressed a fervent kiss there and nuzzled in closer, feeling the faint scratch of curls on his face and inhaling the musk of him. Dean’s cock, standing proud and erect, was a line of heat against his cheek.

God, but it had been so long since he had done this. As a very young man, he had allowed Balthazar to bring him to a molly house a time or two, and when he had first landed on the continent, there had been brief, furtive encounters with other young officers, a comfort against the shock of war. But then Dean had been assigned as his batman, and by the time he had learned that Dean would not turn him in if he discovered him in an act of sodomy, he had been very thoroughly smitten with him, and the thought of being with another had lost all its appeal.

It had been ten long, lonely years, and now Castiel would have time to make up for them all.

One of his hands glided from Dean’s hip, down to cup and roll his balls in his hand, warm and soft, drawing a groan from Dean that shivered down his spine. Castiel kissed his way up the shaft of Dean’s cock until he reached the tip, and, making sure to hold Dean’s gaze, slowly slid his mouth over the head and down.

He had forgotten what it was like, the stretch of his lips, the weight on his tongue, nudging against his soft palate. He had forgotten the salty, musky taste—though surely Dean tasted better than any man he had had before—the fullness, the trust.

Castiel bobbed his head, and Dean made a choking noise above him, eyes wide and green, as he threaded his fingers into Castiel’s dark hair, thoroughly destroying any remaining attempt at a deliberate coiffure. With the hand still holding Dean’s hip, Castiel encouraged him to thrust lightly, sliding his cock in and out of Castiel’s mouth and tightening his fingers in his hair until Castiel moaned.

Dean echoed the sound, his hips thrusting harder, and Castiel made a faint choking noise as the head of Dean’s cock hit the back of his throat. Before Dean could pull back and apologize, Castiel adjusted, pulling him back in and increasing the suction of his lips, drawing every bit of desperation from Dean that he could, eager to have him as delirious for Castiel as Castiel had been for him.

Dean’s hand slid from his hair to cup his cheek, thumb slipping over the corner of Castiel’s mouth, stretched against Dean’s cock. He held Castiel’s gaze, eyes wide and stunned as he came, flooding Castiel’s mouth with the slightly bitter taste.

Dean pulled out, the last of his release catching Castiel warm across his lower lip and down his chin, but then Dean was dropping to his knees before him and kissing it away. 

Breathless, they clung to each other, foreheads pressed to strong shoulders as they slowly came back down to reality.

“What now?” Castiel asked, without raising his face from where it was tucked into the curve of Dean’s neck.

Dean’s calloused hand smoothed over the wing of Castiel’s shoulder. “Now you take to your bed with a megrim, that only I, your faithful valet, can tend to. In a few days, when you reemerge into the world, you may be fit for human consumption. But first, I intend to have my way with you until we can no longer move.”

It did not sound like a bad plan at all.

*****

“You know,” Dean said, many hours later, as they lay side-by-side in bed, bodies bare but for a thin coating of sweat and the hastily wiped up remains of their release. The sheets had been kicked to the foot of the bed, the counterpane onto the floor entirely. Castiel rested his head on Dean’s chest, just above his heart, as Dean toyed idly with his hair. “You said that no man is a hero to his valet, but you are, you know.”

“Hmm?” Castiel made an inquiring noise, rolling his head to better meet Dean’s gaze. It was steady and affectionate, and Castiel’s heart swelled to see it fixed on him.

“You are,” Dean insisted. “A hero. I always thought so, in the war. You would have died to save any of us men. And at Arcis-sur-Aube, when you were injured, you saved my life.”

“And you saved mine.”

“And you have given me a better life than a man like me ever could have dreamed of. Take the compliment.”

“Yes, sir,” Castiel murmured, and then Dean was on him, kissing him silly, and for a long, long time, everything else ceased to matter.

*****

In the wee hours of the morning, Dean watched Castiel sleep, dark hair a tousled mess across the pillow, face unlined and peaceful in sleep.

In the morning, Castiel could no longer claim to have a megrim. It had gone on too long to be quite believable as it was. When morning came, Dean would draw Castiel’s bath and brush his clothes, dress him like a civilized man, and release him to his lordly duties.

No doubt Jo would squawk at him and Charlie would crow, and the two would bicker fondly until they were compelled to find a quiet corner for themselves away from the world. Ellen Harvelle would look at him knowingly, and no doubt Gabriel Milton and Balthazar Roche would too. At the end of the day, Dean would dress Castiel for dinner and steal honeyed kisses, and while the world prepared for slumber, he would undress him for bed, and steal some more, steal right into his bed, as Castiel had stolen into Dean’s heart. Right where he belonged.


End file.
